RPG/Vehicles

Using a Vehicle

Personal vehicles, including automobiles, powersuits, and smaller spaceships, generally have a single pilot. This pilot makes their own initiative roll, but the vehicle itself may limit what partial actions they may take. When a character is piloting a vehicle, their normal actions can be used to make vehicle actions, as seen below. Each action will be listed with the type of character action used to make the vehicle action, but modifications to the vehicle can change what actions these may be. Pilot facets often gain additional actions that can only be spent on various vehicle actions.

(Hand) Move/Maneuver: A vehicle has a listed max speed, which is at a different scale than normal speed depending on the ship's size. By making a move action, the pilot may both set the throttle of the vehicle and use its maneuver. The vehicle must move a number of spaces equal to its throttle, which is any positive number up to its max speed(Or any negative number up to half of that on a mecha) forward, and may make a number of 60 degree turns(One 6th of its radius on a hexagon map) up to its maneuverability when a move action is taken. If a pilot does not use all of their maneuver as turns during a move/maneuver action, the remainder is applied as a bonus to the vehicle's difficulty to be hit. Certain terrain, atmospheric conditions or vehicle status effects can require more move or maneuver to get through. If a move/Maneuver action was spent, the pilot may make a piloting skill/stat roll, which differs from vehicle to vehicle, to set its difficulty to be hit, with the additional maneuver bonus added. Otherwise, its difficulty to be hit is equal to 5. Additional move actions can be made to re-roll the vehicle's difficulty to hit, and in these cases the higher result is kept.

(Hand) Fire Weapons: Standard vehicles have power plants strong enough to support them firing continuously, which is once per round per weapon. Firing shots requires a Targeting roll, which is listed with the vehicle's stats. The damage weapons deal is listed with the vehicle's stats. Weapons must punch through shields before damaging a ship's armor, as described in the Shields section. After the first shot, every additional shot taken during the same firing action. suffers a cumulative -3 penalty. Each weapon has a listed range in its description, and firing with those weapons at a target further than the range(the closest you can count in spaces away) imposes a -1 penalty for each range set beyond the first.

Linked Weapons: Weapons dealing identical damage which are linked can be fired simultaneously, dispersing their damage across shields but concentrating them all on a single target, making it likely to deal more damage. Firing any number of linked weapons in a linked shot counts as a single attack for the purposes of determining difficulty, but if it hits, the additional shots past the first deal only half their damage.

Leading Shots: When firing weapons, you may choose to aim your shots to prevent an opponent from being able to maneuver safely rather than directly target an opponent. Every shot taken in this manner has a base difficulty of 5, and when successful imposes a -1 penalty to the target's difficulty to be hit plus an extra -1 penalty for every 5 rolled over the difficulty.

(Hand) Shields: A pilot may use their vehicle's shields actively, if the vehicles are equipped with shields, once per round at any point when they are hit by an attack. If a vehicle has shields, those shields will be listed as X+YdZ. X is the shield's passive rating. All attacks that hit the vehicle automatically deal X less damage. YdZ is the dice rating of the active shields, which are added to the passive shields against a single attack when the shield action is spent. If there is no Y rating, as is the case for most shields, Y is assumed to be 1.

(Speak) Comms: A vehicle with communications equipment can engage those comms to speak with others equipped with comms(or in some cases, broadcast via speakers in atmosphere). These comms have the ability to be switched to different targets, and may impose a penalty to your other rolls depending on how you use them.

(Speak) Sensors: Some vehicles are equipped with targeting systems that not only reveal the positions of all other vehicles in the vicinity, but can assist with aiming weaponry at desired targets. Targeting a vehicle in this manner uses a Sensors action, and is referred to as "locking on". The benefits provided by locking on to a target are described in the equipment of a given vehicle.

(Hand) Power Management: Most ships have reactors that provide enough power to cover all of the ship's needs even at maximum load, but some may be designed to theoretically draw more power than they have available. Adjusting the flow of power is generally a result of using the systems in question, turning the engine speed, maneuvering jets, sensors or shields down before using the high-powered equipment, and when a ship requires power management such as this, the power drains of its various systems will be listed on the ship. Some of these, particularly biowarp-capable fighters, may be more simplified, and simply disallow the use of certain systems while the biowarp drive charges. Biowarp mages of various types can use their own MP to supply power to these systems if the ship is equipped for it. In this case, the ship will have BioWarp controls at a level of X/Y, where X is the amount of MP per turn a biowarp mage can spend powering the ship and Y is the amount of ship MP each personal MP is converted to. Ships with dedicated engineers may be able to use more involved power management actions that boost the effectiveness of particular parts of the ship or coax additional power out of the reactors.

(All)) Repair: All ships have a dedicated engineering hatch, compartment or section and may be repaired on the fly by a skilled engineer. Engineering is both intellectually and laboriously intensive, so a pilot attempting to engineer their own ship cannot perform any additional actions with the ship(though they may speak and listen through the comm channel they were already set on and the engine will continue to thrust them forward at the last speed they were set to, providing them with some passive dodge). Many larger ships have their own engineer or even team of engineers to quickly assess and repair damage.

Extra actions: Like with character-to-character combat, if a pilot has an initiative higher than 10, they may regain additional partial turns. These partial turns can be spent on actions, and these count as a refresh of sorts. If a pilot uses a partial action to gain a new maneuver action, they could not change the vehicle's speed, but they could re-roll their maneuver roll. If they choose to use the additional partial action to fire weapons, they could not fire weapons that have already been fired this round, but they could fire any additional weapons they have with the additional weapon firing penalty reduced back to 0 as though no weapons had been fired that round. The pilot may hold any extra actions to use as additional shield actions, but they only gain the die part of the shield, rather than the constant part of the shield. Any other actions, such as sensors or comms, can be used with an additional action without imposing their penalty on the piloting or maneuver rolls.

Ship armor: As ships take damage, their armor is decreased like a character's hit points. A ship with 0 armor remaining is not destroyed, but every shot that hits will deal critical damage to the ship, which will eventually render it unusable until it is repaired. Certain ships have the Throwaway modifier. These ships actually do outright explode at 0 of Armor remaining.

Critical Damage: When a ship is hit by a weapon with an attack roll that is at least double the ship's defense and the weapon deals at least the ship's size in HP damage, the ship takes additional "Critical Damage" as well. Critical damage has effects on the ship's systems, and must be repaired for the ship to be at full capacity. Once a ship's HP is reduced to 0, all shots that deal damage to the ship also deal critical damage, and the damage dealt is likely to be more severe as it takes more critical hits.

Multiple Crew Members: A few smaller ships and most larger ships have crews of more than one. This is generally to the ship's benefit, as each crew member can handle a specific portion of the ship's duties, there will be less likelihood of any one crew member suffering a penalty to their actions, and a commander can lend bonuses to other crewmates by assisting in their coordination. Each crew member acts on their own initiative, and can delay to coordinate better.

Ship Critical Damage

When a ship is crit and the damage is equal to at least the size of the ship hit, Roll a d12 to determine to what part of the ship damage is dealt, then roll a d4 to determine the exact nature of the damage. if the ship does not have that part, roll again. The ship's size-3 sizes should be added to the difficulty of fixing anything. If the same part is damaged twice, add +3 to the repair difficulty. Once the ship is at 0 HP and takes a crit, add +1 to the d4 roll.

1: Whew!: No effect this time.

2: Structural Damage

(1)Paint Job Ruined: Excessive scoring has made the ship look older. Luckily, getting the paint fixed is about as cheap and easy as getting a car wash.

(2)Dented: The ship's got a few dents in it now, it definately won't sell for mint. Repairing dents is quite a bit more expensive than getting the thing repainted.

(3)Airlock Fused: Needs to be fixed at dock. The Airlock is fused shut, meaning noone leaves the ship through that one until it's pulled open. You should really have more than one of those, by the way.

(4)Hull Breach: A chunk of the ship blows open(roll again to determine which section of the ship), the vacuum dealing 2+d10 damage per round to anyone nearby until it is repaired with a base difficulty 7.

(5)Critical Hull Breach: The ship's structure is permanently damaged, as (4) but with a difficulty of 13 and requiring $1000 times the ship's size to repair.

3: Power Damage

(1)Power Fluctuation: The next round, the ship provides 10% MP Less than normal.

(2)Reboot: The next turn, no weapons, sensors, countermeasures, or shields may be used.

(3)Energy Leak: The ship's excess energy is leaking out. If the ship has capacitors, they no longer function until fixed with a base difficulty of 7.

(4)Catastrophic Malfunction: The power goes partially out, the ship provides half its normal MP until it is repaired with a base difficulty of 9.

(5)Reactor Offline: The ship loses all power. Requires new reactor.

4: Engine Damage

(1)Jets Dented: The ship's max Speed and Maneuverability are lowered by 1 each until fixed with a base difficulty of 5.

(2)Throttle Stuck: The ship's engine speed is frozen, cannot change speed until fixed with a base difficulty of 5.

(3)Engine Stall: The ship's max speed drops to 0 until it is fixed with a base difficulty of 7.

(4)Maneuvering Jets Out: The ship's maneuver is frozen at -4(0 power) until fixed, difficulty 7.

(5)Engine Loss: The ship's engine is a total loss. Requires new engine.

5: Sensor Damage

(1)Fuzzy Screens: All sensor rolls are at -1 until repaired with a base difficulty of 5.

(2)Sensor Short: Roll again for a specific Sensor system. That system is inoperable until repaired with a base difficulty of 7.

(3)IFF Screwup: Your character shows as a secondary target for friendly missiles whose targets have already been destroyed. Base repair difficulty is only 5, but it's a bit trickier to notice this one.

(4)Blackout: All sensor systems are down, each one requires a repair roll base 7 to fix.

(5)Sensors Lost: All sensor systems are destroyed and must be replaced.

6: Life Support Damage

(1)Flicker: The lights flicker for a round, making all characters at -1 to their rolls unless they have some sort of night-vision

(2)Gravity Off: The Gravity in the ship goes out. All rolls are at -2(unless the character has some sort of zero-G Acclimation) until repaired at a base difficulty of 5.

(3)Lights Out: The lights go completely out, and it's really dark in space. Everyone is at -4 to all their rolls(unless they've got dark-vision cancelling it out) until the problem is fixed, which is a difficulty of 7.

(4)Thinning Air: Life support is going out on the ship. All characters on board the ship lose 1d8 HP per round from asphyxiation(or loss of whatever is provided in their life support) until the problem is fixed, difficulty 9.

(5)Life Support destroyed: As (4), but life support must be completely replaced.

7: Biowarp Damage

(1)Biowarp Power Leak: The next biowarp will take 1 extra round to complete.

(2)Biowarp Overload: If the ship has biomage controls, the Biowarp mage using them takes 3+d6 damage every turn the mage uses them. This can be repaired with a base difficulty of 7.

(3)Biowarp Inoperable:The Biowarp engine does not work until fixed, with a base difficulty of 9.

(4)Navigation Failure:The Biowarp engine, when used, jumps the ship to random areas until fixed, with a base difficulty of 9.

(5)Biowarp detonation: Biowarp engine is lost and must be replaced.

8: Armor Damage

(1)Dented Armor: The ship's armor is signifigantly dented, needing repair at a dock.

(2)Weld Spot Hit: The damage for the shot that caused this hit is doubled.

(3)Chunk Blowoff: The damage that was just dealt to the ship deals permanent damage to the armor, destroying the nearest multiple of 20 HP, rounded up in armor. This cannot be repaired unless the armor plating is replaced.

(4)Exposed Weak Spot: Until the armor is repaired, with a difficulty of 9, crits dealt to the ship deal double damage as well.

(5)Armor Stripped: As 4, but requires half the base cost in new structure repair.

9: Shield Damage

(1)Shield Bypass: Any additional shots until next round deal damage as though the ship had no shield.

(2)Shield Dulled: The shield is dulled down, its max protection is lowered a step until repaired, with a base difficulty of 5.

(3)Shield Down: The shield is knocked offline, and offers no protection until repaired, with a base difficulty of 7.

(4)Polarity Reversed: Laser shots at the shield are intensified, rather than reflected, and the shield is stuck. Until this is fixed with a base difficulty of 9, Laser shots that hit this ship deal double damage.

(5)Shield Destroyed: Shield completely gone, needs replacement.

10: Weapon Damage(If multiple weapons, choose a weapon group randomly)

(1)Focuser Damaged: Until this is fixed, with a base difficulty of 5, hits with this weapon group deal one step less damage.

(2)Targeting Damaged: The weapon group becomes harder to target with, and attack rolls with the weapon group are lowered by 2 until this is fixed, with a base difficulty of 5.

(3)Weapon Offline: The weapon group does not work until fixed, with a base difficulty of 7.

(4)Weapon Jammed: The weapon group becomes jammed. The next time it is fired, it deals its normal damage to the ship, then the weapon group becomes inoperable until replaced.

(5)Weapon Destroyed: Weapon completely gone, needs replacement.

11: Countermeasure Damage(If multiple countermeasures, randomly determine a countermeasure)

(1)Dud: The next time the countermeasure fires, it does nothing.

(2)Ammo Explosion: A single charge of the countermeasure explodes, dealing damage to the ship.

(3)Countermeasures Offline: The countermeasures do not work until fixed with a base difficulty of 7.

(4)Frequency Mix-up: The countermeasures track friendly missiles until the problem is fixed, with a base difficulty of 9.

(5)Countermeasures Destroyed: Countermeasure completely gone, needs replacement.

12: That's not good: Roll once to see how bad it is, and roll twice again to determine what two systems were affected this way.

(1)It's Bad: The difficulty to repair the damage systems is raised by 2.

(2)It's Worse: You don't have the proper equipment to actually repair the systems. You can only jury-rig the systems until you get somewhere where you can get the parts.

(3)You Don't Want to Know: After both systems are rolled, roll a system again, ignoring results of 1 or 12. The systems damaged need parts from the system indicated here that are critical to their functioning. You have to scrap the one system to be able to fix the other two normally.

(4)Oh, Damn: The difficulty to fix the systems damaged here is 4 higher, and each round that they go unrepaired, another system at random is damaged. This stops when both of the originally damaged systems are repaired.

(5)See ya: The ship is about to catastrophically explode. You have 1d6*the ship's size rounds to evacuate before it goes up. During this time, you may stop the explosion with a repair difficulty of 25+the ship's size. You may be able to salvage the systems not affected by this roll(roll to see which two systems explode)